[Avodah] Explaining boneh/electricity to a non-religious person

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 08:11:45AM -0500, David Riceman wrote:
: Micha Berger wrote:
: >Second, anything that almost inevitably sparks, even lo nikha lei, would
: >be bishul. That would include AC switches, many motors, etc...

: What if the sparks are too small to be seen with the naked eye?

Then not. However, at 110 volts, never mind 220, my impression is that
they aren't too small. Similarly, 9 volt motors. Perhaps lower voltage,
I never ran one without its casing.

:>Fourth, a radio, MP3 player, cell phone or TV are possibly within the
:>gezeira against keli zemer, since they're adjustable and can play music.

: Does this apply even if the adjusting is not inherently assur? ...

I would think so, because we're not talking about the inherent issur,
we're talking about whether they fit under the gezeirah of kelei zemer.
A gezeirah follows its wording, and isn't limited to cases where the
sevara applies.

:                                 OTOH I had understood the issur against 
: klei zemer to apply even to instruments which are not routinely tuned by 
: players (pianos fall into that category), and there is an additional 
: issur of hashma'as kol independent of music.

And that wouldn't apply to electrical devices that that make a kol?

I would argue that the vast majority of computing devices, as well
as all cell phones, would be a problem because of their sound-making
function. Nothing to do with the fact that they use electriticity to
do so.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
micha at aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter